Cover Story

Innovative culture

Mark Hattas co-founded Geneca in 1998 at the age of 26. As the CEO, he is at the helm of one of the fastest-growing IT services firms in the Chicago region.

The company grew quickly and with minimal seed money from friends and family. His early support staff consisted of his cousin and a few programmers and recruiters.

The customer software industry has a longstanding reputation as being unpredictable in its ability to deliver on time and on budget and meet project objectives. Knowing that the marketplace craved a solution to these ongoing problems, Hattas recognized a need in the market and made the decision to transition from IT staffing to customer software development.

Hattas’ mission is to change the common perception of the industry by demonstrating to the market that customer software development can be predictable. Geneca aims to achieve that by continually evolving its best practices for requirements definition, software development and project governance as well as by hiring people who are impassioned about making and honoring commitments.

The ability to create alignment among a project’s stakeholders influences every phase of a software development project and is an integral part of requirements practices. While other firms have requirement practices, most focus on alignment between business and IT. However, Geneca’s “Getting Predictable” approach is different because it also focuses on creating alignment between business stakeholders and quantifying project success in terms that make sense to the entire organization.

Because every Geneca employee plays a key role in carrying out the mission, the company remains diligent in maintaining consistency between the mission, values and daily execution.

Over the next several years, Geneca will continue to set the bar higher for other IT services firms and leverage its stellar reputation in Chicago for expansion into other key markets.

How to reach: Geneca, (630) 599-0900 or www.geneca.com